


scratch at your waist-line, your doll hair

by Feather (lalaietha)



Series: (even if i could) make a deal with god [your blue-eyed boys related short-fic] [90]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5 Things, Bucky's total failure to recognize his own massive psychological progress, Disabled Character, Guilt, Haircuts, Hydra did a number on Bucky, Kid Bucky Barnes, Kid Steve Rogers, Mentally Ill Character, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, The chair, recovery is a spiral, recovery isn't simple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-13 21:51:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4538724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/Feather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven moments around cutting hair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	scratch at your waist-line, your doll hair

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of [**this series**](http://archiveofourown.org/series/132585), which is for short-fic associated with my fic [**your blue-eyed boys**](http://archiveofourown.org/series/107477), because I needed somewhere to stash it.

1\. 

His hair is dark and doesn't curl, so his mother starts cutting it early on and without much fuss. 

There's a _big_ fuss when Uncle Jimmy cuts Warren's hair, because Warren's hair is gold-coloured and curly and Aunt Bess throws a fit and cries, and then Uncle Warren yells about her not acting like his son's a little girl who's supposed to be pretty and then Aunt Bess _and_ Aunt Jeannie shout at _him_ about being an unfeeling heartless monster and after that more or less the whole building and a couple friends out in the street are involved. 

Bucky's mom rolls her eyes and goes over to pull the window shut, then turns up the radio. 

When Billy's hair gets cut for the first time, Aunt Mairie just comes over and pretends she isn't crying about her baby not being a baby anymore at Bucky's mom. At the table, with the tea, Bucky's mom makes sympathetic noises and pats her hand and, after Aunt Mairie leaves, rolls her eyes and pours the rest of the tea out. Makes herself coffee instead and, since it's late afternoon, slips some of Dad's whisky into it. 

Bucky's around five years old when he starts wondering about it: he remembers both those days, the first of them because of the big fuss and the second because Mom rarely put liquor in her coffee, and then of course everyone in the family _talks_ about it all the time, because it's one of the Stories. Someone says something about kids and haircuts or kids and growing up or kids and husbands and out comes the Story about Warren's hair and then every other kid's first haircut. 

Except Bucky's. His mom puts in her bits and remarks about the other Stories, but she doesn't share her own, and shrugs when someone asks her. 

The next time she says something about him starting to look like a ragamuffin and pulls out her scissors, Bucky asks, "Mom? How come you don't have a story about first time you cut my hair?" 

"Because I've got more brains and sense than a wasp caught in a teakettle," she replies. "Unlike your father's sisters. _Or_ mine. It's only hair, Bucky. It grows back, and cutting doesn't change it. Your aunts are silly, and act like cutting is what made Warren's hair turn coarse instead of curly, or made him turn wild. They're wrong. Warren was always wild, and his hair would have ended up like that anyway. And if they didn't _want_ sons just like their husbands - " 

But she stops there and says, "And you'll not be repeating that anywhere, young man," and mock tugs at his ear. "But hair's just hair." 

And Bucky thinks that's sensible. Except she doesn't seem to feel that way at all when, later that week, Bucky gets a piece of molasses-candy so stuck in his hair on the one side that she's got to cut everything almost short enough to count as bald. _Then_ he gets her shouting at him and crying, and then a hiding from his dad for making her upset, and then a second one for getting angry and shouting at Dad that if making Mom upset meant a beating, who was going to beat _him_? 

Then he punches Warren in the face for laughing at him, but that turns out all right because he knocks Warren's loose tooth out and that means Warren gets a nickel or a piece of candy or something from the Tooth Fairy even sooner than he thought, so they make up a story about it being an accident to tell Aunt Bess and neither of them gets in trouble. 

 

2\. 

With the cloth wrapped around his hand, pushing hard, Steve _glares_ murderously at Bucky and says, "Shut up." 

"I didn't say a damn thing," Bucky says, trying to radiate at least mock-hurt innocence, but probably failing because he's trying too hard not to laugh. Steve's not impressed, anyway. 

"You're thinking so loud, the radio can probably pick you up," he retorts. "I got dizzy and my hand slipped, okay? It happens. And it's not that bad." 

"Has it stopped bleeding yet?" Bucky asks, pretty sure the answer is _no_ because he thinks he can see some red peeking out on the cloth, and besides, Steve bleeds enough after these things that Bucky remembers at one point Steve's mom was afraid he'd somehow got hemophilia on top of everything else. Seems he doesn't: he just, well, bleeds. 

"Okay now you said something," Steve says, "and shut up." Grimacing, he gingerly releases his hold on his cut hand and lets the cloth pull back a bit so he can look at it. Bucky can see where the scissors sliced, and it does at least take a second or two before the blood starts welling up. "And it's almost stopped," Steve mutters. He puts the cloth back on and goes back to holding the pressure on. 

"At least you know your scissors are sharp?" Bucky offers, innocently, and gets another glare full of murder and can't help laughing a little this time. 

"You know why don't you just shut up," Steve says, for more or less the third time, but goes on, "and boil some water and find me some soap and the iodine and a bandage so I can wrap this up when it's stopped leaking. And stop laughing or I'll start telling people about how you almost cut your own throat the first time you tried to shave." 

Bucky holds up his hands in surrender, stifles the laughter and goes to find the little kit full of everything they manage to scrounge up as far as medical supplies go, as well as lighting the stove and putting a pot full of water on. He'd been ten at the time, so he's not _that_ afraid of that story getting out - but it did have to be a little embarrassing ending up cutting yourself when you're trying to cut someone else's hair - not to mention painful) so Bucky is actually _trying_ not to be mean. 

It's just that it's pretty damn funny, too. 

When Bucky passes over the bottle and the bandage, Steve's looking a slight bit less cranky and a little more chagrined. He glances up and says, "At least I hadn't done much," and Bucky shrugs. 

"I'll go be sweet at my cousin Alison 's'afternoon, no problem. Wash the cut out and wrap it up and I'll clip your hair anyway, no reason not to. How deep did you slice yourself, anyway?" 

Steve makes a face and pulls the cloth off carefully, holding up his hand. "At least it's my left," he says, wry. "Oh well - haven't been sick or injured or even wheezy for more than a month, should've known I was due for something." 

 

3\. 

"It's funny," Gabe says, shaking his head, "you can always tell when there's a photographer or a reporter around when we get in." 

Jim gives him a wry glance and says, "How, by the way the barbers descend on us en mass lest we actually _look_ like we've just been in the damn field, or how you can see one or two guys over at the side squinting at us like they're trying to make sure you and me aren't too obvious in the picture?" 

"I think the answer there is 'yes'," Bucky says, while Dugan and Steve both wince and Frenchie and Monty both get their _oh Americans_ looks. Jim's got a shrapnel wound in his calf and a burn on his side and they're both painful enough to sharpen his edge all the way to razor, even when he'd normally try to dull it down. Nobody blames him, especially seeing as they should _all_ have been ripped up from that last explosion and the part where Jim's the only one who got hit with anything worth talking about probably means he's just being a bad luck magnet on behalf of the rest of that one. 

Gabe reaches over and tugs at the strap for Morita's best beloved HYDRA cannon, a wordless offer to carry it that Jim takes him up on just about immediately, crossing his arms across his chest and glowering at the snow as they cross the last bit of ground to their rapidly advancing welcoming party. 

"I want coffee," Jim says after a minute. "They better give me coffee before they start trying to cut my hair. Real fucking coffee," he adds, giving Dernier a sidelong look. " _Good_ coffee." 

Dernier aloofly pretends not to understand English, and Bucky sees Steve stifle a smile before he answers, "Pretty sure we can get everyone some coffee, Jim," in his best soothing-ruffled-feathers voice. He's getting pretty good at that one, come to think of it; mostly it gets pointed at supply officers and officers who are technically senior but currently getting steamrollered by SSR priorities whether they like it or not and once or twice at Col Phillips. 

Pointing it at Col Phillips doesn't work, granted. Mostly gets Steve shouted at to the tune of _Don't you go trying to unruffle my damn feathers, Rogers, my feathers are ruffled for a good God-damn reason,_ or something. Occasionally followed by shouting, _Carter! Kindly explain to this exceedingly zealous young man exactly how hard he has made my job today because just now_ I _have to go . . ._ and then some complaint about who he had to talk to or argue with or placate or explain to. 

Which is three quarters bullshit - Phillips just likes shouting at people - and one quarter inevitable, since half the fucking time what Command wants out of Steve and the rest of them amounts to "perform this miracle except we're going to specifically deny you the permission, equipment or provisions you need to do it" and the wrangling Phillips has to do's just basically explaining how they decided to ignore that second part in favour of the fucking miracle. 

Speaking of which - "Heads up," Bucky says, stepping on his own amusement and jerking his head towards the approaching semi-crowd and then smirking at Steve. "Colonel's here, which means you're either in trouble already or about to be." 

Steve tries to look even slightly repentant when he says, "Maybe I should've cleared the detour with him ahead of time," but he more or less fails. Badly. 

"Nah," Bucky says. "He secretly loves sudden and unexpected changes in plans." 

"If you're trying not to laugh during the dressing down," Monty says, idly, "consider reciting a poem you truly hate in your head until you think the shouting's done. Works every time." 

Steve shoots Monty an amused look and says, "You've been demoted back to lieutenant - " 

" _Lef-_ tenant," Monty corrects blandly and Steve ignores him, like everyone does.

" - how many times?" 

"Those were all for quite deliberate insubordination," Monty replies. "Not for failing to suppress a smile because the officer involved had a throbbing vein at his temple." 

"That only happened _once_ ," Dugan objects, sounding aggrieved. Then he adds, "And I didn't get demoted." 

They can go on like this forever, and frankly Bucky wishes they could go on like this - at least, he'd rather that than deal with the collection of officers, reporters and every other fucking thing that suddenly feels way too close and almost threatening. And since there's also two or three privates standing around looking awkward with small cases under their arms, fucking powers that be probably _had_ yanked over whatever fucking barbers were available, which meant somebody wanted Captain America to inspire the home-front pronto, without even waiting for any of them to have a shower. 

The banter stops, probably because everyone else is figuring out what Bucky did, and Jim looks sternly at Steve. "Coffee," he says. "I'm serious." 

 

4\. 

When the door opens the light hurts his eyes. He gets halfway through flinching to cover his face with his hands before he forces himself to stop and squint at the light instead and wait for the stabbing pain to stop. 

He doesn't know how long he's been in this cell. Not exactly. A few days. Long enough that if he touches his jaw the scrape against his fingers is longer than stubble and strands of his hair catch against his face. Until the door opened there's been little sound and no light, even the ration packets and the water they drop him arriving in the dark. Even if he'd been trying he wouldn't know, would have lost count of sleeping and waking and excuses for meals and he wasn't trying. Isn't trying. 

Stares at the dark or curls on the floor with his eyes closed. Lets his head go empty as it can. Sometimes it doesn't work, sometimes he can't - sometimes things in his head get confused and mixed up somehow, and he realizes he's hitting the wall and screaming before he makes himself stop. He's probably gone fucking crazy, but what does that fucking matter? 

It doesn't. He might as well go fucking crazy. 

He stopped eating some time ago. Stopped drinking a little while after that. That's probably why the door opens. 

He's naked and filthy and cold, sitting in a corner of the cell because that way he knows where at least two of the walls are, even if that's about all he knows. The light still hurts his eyes, enough that the men who step into the cell are silhouettes, shapes. He stops bothering to look at them: closes his eyes and rests his forehead on his bent knees. Most of his head feels like it's full of some kind of thick fucking sludge. 

The closest one barks some kind of order, in Russian. He can understand some of what they say, by now, but he doesn't fucking bother. Lets it just be noises. Fuck that, and fuck them. 

Two more barks, like a frustrated fucking dog, and then he feels a gloved hand close in his hair, yank his head up. 

Standing close enough to do that is a mistake. 

He closes his left fist around the bastard's forearm, hauls the fucker over his head to land hard on the floor before he wraps his right hand around the guard's jaw and slams the bastard's skull into the floor as hard as he can. 

Once. 

Twice. 

Three times before the first rifle butt hits his head. 

Two more of them have broken legs before they manage to hold him still enough to get the injection in - then they stumble back, grabbing for rifles and sidearms to put between him and them, and wait. Wait for the fucking drug to make his vision swim, his head fucking spin, until he knows even on hands and knees he's swaying because the whole fucking world's swaying. 

Whatever fucking doctor or scientist it is this time is American, not Russian; when the doctor snaps, " _Quick_ , you idiots, he'll burn through that in ten minutes or less," it's in English, familiar fucking English, before someone else's voice is parroting in Russian, _quick, quick, quick_. 

Hands on his arms drag him upright; maybe he could walk, a little, but he's not going to fucking help and they drag him out into the hall where it's stabbing-agonizing bright and then down the hall to a room that's worse. They shove him back against something flat and tilted and then the stiff, thick cuffs close around his ankles, above his knees, around his wrists and his upper arms and the collar snaps shut around his neck. 

"Christ," says the American voice, "that's absolutely foul - clean it up, now, here - " and he can feel, just, another needle in his arm, "get the subject cleaned and prepped _now_ , so we can get the IVs in for the rehydration and the relaxants. Do I have to tell you everything?" 

And then none of the noises make words anymore; this dose is higher, must be higher. The water stabs through the fog like ice when it hits him; he hears the buzz, feels the electric razor against his skin, face, scalp, hears thick blurred noises of voices he doesn't understand and then feels one needle for IV in his neck, one in his arm. 

Another needle at his elbow and he can smell blood, vaguely thinks _blood test_. "Get on that," the American voice snaps. "I need to know if we need nasogastric intubation, and won't that be fucking fun. _Move_." 

Then, "Fine, while he's getting that, we'll see if any of the nerve or muscle responses decayed - " 

The man does something. The world dissolves into screaming, agonizing white. 

 

5\. 

(Vision improving. Motor control standard. Unacceptable, incomplete but - improvement progresses. Smell, hearing both functional but not adequate. Feeding tubes removed; rehydration IV in place. Standard.) 

(Straps released; direction given to stand; follow; sit. Chair familiar. Vision still improving. Standard.) 

(Hearing functional, thoughts . . . better: words from technicians and medics comprehensible.) 

("Get rid of this, it's going to interfere with the mask." "Hair too?" "Might as well, while you're at it." The buzz and hum by his ears, through his skull, against his jaw. Sensation of air against newly uncovered skin. Standard. Unimportant.) 

(Hand on the front of his shoulder indicates - recline. Comply. Arms are repositioned; restraint closes on upper organic arm, lower organic arm, upper - )

(Heart-rate increasing. Respiratory rate increasing. Mouth-guard provided.) 

([ _No please no please no -_ ]) 

 

6\. 

There isn't memory. 

Isn't. He can't reach it. Not there. Like movement, flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye but when he turns his head it's not there. Like hearing a voice when there's no one to speak but not hearing the word. Edges, glimpses, but not . . . memory. 

Sometimes, maybe, a moment. Long enough to breathe, long enough to take two breaths or maybe three he'll remember and then something _something_ lashes out at him and - it's gone. Something. Anything. Smell of motor exhaust. Smell of food. Clothing moving against skin (fuck, fuck he _hates_ it, hates hates hates except he hates not having it more), or even his fucking hair touching his shoulders. 

Twice. That breaks the moment twice. Then he goes through every drawer, trying not to break anything trying not to yank drawers out of their places until he finds scissors. Means to get rid of it all, cut it all off, fuck, this - 

The photograph still lives on the computer desk. That he touched and couldn't put back the way it should have been. Rogers put it back, in the morning. Picked it up off its face and put the frame back beside the screen. Black and white and old and bigger, bigger in the museum. Rogers and - who Rogers thinks he is, standing beside him. Dark coat, old rifle. Short hair. 

He can't throw up. He has consumed nothing in the past twelve hours. But his body wants him to. 

He uses the scissors to cut enough that the ends of his hair can't touch his shoulder anymore. Finds a rubber band to hold the rest out of his face. Cleans everything away, no trace, puts the scissors back where he found them. 

Returns to the room with the single bed and closes the door, before Rogers comes back. 

 

7\. 

Carter's having a bad week. He gathers from Steve that there's some new treatment or other that's getting together a trial group, and Carter Jr is leaning towards enrolling her great-aunt, but it hasn't happened yet and this week's been hard on anyone invested in how Carter's doing. 

It makes for Steve being weirdly suspended between tactile and hesitant, like somewhere in his skull he's torn between worrying Bucky's going to evaporate or disappear, and being afraid that acting like he is'll turn out to be the thing that makes that happen. Which means Bucky stamps harder on the knee-jerk retreat when Steve offers things, like to work on the soreness in Bucky's neck, that give him an _excuse_ to be touchy. 

Well. Tries to stamp harder. 

Success is . . . mixed. 

He's sure the whole setup is fucking hilarious to someone out there, but it's sure as fuck not him. 

Right now he's sitting on the floor with the kitten in his lap, in front of Steve sitting on the futon and doing just that, because even if this were a normal day Bucky doesn't think he'd get very far pretending his neck doesn't hurt and that it isn't making his head and jaw both ache, badly. Steve's got Netflix playing something from a documentary series about "industrial marvels" or some shit like that, and this one's about the Brooklyn Bridge; Bucky isn't even pretending to pay attention. 

He feels the breath of not-quite-laughter Steve lets go of, more than he hears it - and Hell, maybe somehow picks it up subconsciously more than he even feels it. But Bucky pulls himself back - carefully - from the place that's half zoned out and half constantly reminding himself whose hands are on his neck and shoulders and in his hair, whose fingertips are pressing into his skull, and so exactly how he _doesn't_ need to react. 

He says, "What?" and does feel Steve give the kind of shrug that would be waving something away if his hands weren't busy. 

"Last time you cut your hair," Steve says, "you got one piece back here about an inch shorter than everything else. Can't tell unless you're up close looking - I never noticed it before, but I did just now." 

"Nn," Bucky says, closing his eyes again, dismissing it. Doesn't matter. 

He can feel the hesitance, like Steve's stuck on something, but can't figure out what it'd be for until Steve says, "Want to skip that next time, I could do it for you," in the tone Bucky lets him pretend actually manages to sound off-hand and casual. 

Bucky tenses. He can't stop it, can't get ahead of his body and get a hold on it and make it _not_ do that because by the time he can think about not wanting it, it's already done. And he can almost feel Steve pull back - at least mentally pull back. Like he does from edges. Like he's expecting the _no_ and just hoping he didn't screw up more than just that. 

And fuck, Bucky hates that. Not hates that Steve does it, not . . . really, more hates that it's a fucking reasonable thing for Steve to do. That it's a fucking reasonable tic to have, when you have to deal with someone as fucked up as Bucky is. Hates _that_. Enough that he's reaching up with his right hand to catch Steve's wrist before Steve can _actually_ pull back, or pull away. 

He . . . stalls out a little, after that. But maybe that much is important, is enough for something. 

It's not the first time Steve's said anything, offered. Second? Might be the second. Bucky knows that the last time, at least, he hadn't so much actually been able to turn the offer down as he'd fucking frozen, _shut_ down, and Steve'd taken it for _no_ and not asked since. And Bucky'd spent the next two hours furious at himself, because he couldn't even fucking figure out _why_. 

He still doesn't know why. He's really fucking _tired_ of this shit, of being this way, with things where he doesn't even know the "why". 

"Maybe," he says. Makes himself say, as neutral as he can. It isn't . . . a lot, it isn't fucking anything but maybe it's better than last time. 

After a second, he lets his right hand go back to the little lump of fur in his lap, working in between paws to her underside so that _she_ settles down from her sudden alertness, turns over to show her belly. 

Steve rests his forehead on the top of Bucky's head, for a minute. Hands just resting on his shoulders now, not pretending to have a reason. Then he slides down off the couch, behind Bucky, and works his arms in under Bucky's, around his waist. 

He kisses the back of Bucky's head and says, "Don't do things you don't want to do for me," quiet and serious. Bucky snorts, and watches that his hand doesn't close on the kitten or press too hard. 

"I'll do things," he replies, "because I'm _fucking_ tired of being so _fucking_ crazy about shit that _doesn't even matter_ ," and it comes out harsher and angrier than he means it to, but he can't quite pull it back until he stops himself. "I'm fucking done," he says, getting a bit of a grip. 

Steve doesn't say anything for a moment, head still resting against Bucky's. Then he says, "Make sure it's more that reason than me, okay?" and Bucky doesn't know how to answer that. Not really. 

Falls back on, "Martyr," out of habit, out of needing to say _something_. Steve shifts his arms so that one wraps around Bucky's waist, the other one around his ribs. 

"I learnt it from watching you," he says, his new favourite fucking answer. 

"Smartass," Bucky retorts, managing to keep his voice even. 

"Jerk," Steve counters. 

"Punk." 

"Jerk." 

Bucky feels his mouth quirk. Says, "I don't think you get to just repeat yourself." 

"I do," Steve replies, blandly, and doesn't bother offering any more defense, so Bucky rolls his eyes and then shifts his weight a little so his hip stops complaining. 

After another minute or two, while the show explains about the bends, Bucky adds, "I'm not going anywhere, Steve." 

When Steve says, "I know," it's not the least convincing he's ever sounded, so Bucky lets it go for now.

**Author's Note:**

> In case the timing is not obvious: 4 is in captivity but prior to the Chair, 5 is as the Winter Soldier, and 6 corresponds to the 24 hours before he first makes coffee and Steve finds him looking at photos in YBEB pt1 chapter 3.


End file.
